First Inhabitants -- First Business Men -- Strife with
Gaines for Court House -- Strategy Used by Albion Men to get Court House
-- First Court House -- Second court House -- County Jail -- First Hote
l-- First Warehouse -- Stone Flouring Mill -- Lawyers -- Drs. Nichoson and
White -- First Tanyard -- First Blacksmiths -- Name of the Village.

Oak Orchard Road intersects this village and now forms Main Street,
north and south, in the center of the place. It was this road and the
Erie Canal that fixed a village here.

When the canal was commenced Albion was used for farms, but by the
time the canal became navigable considerable of a town had sprung up.

William McCollister cleared the first land on what is now in the
corporation, where the Court House and Female Seminary stand, and built
his log house on the Seminary lot in 1812. He took up lot thirty-five,
township fifteen, range one, on the east side of Main street, under
article from the Holland Company, which he sold to William Bradner, who
took the deed from the company of two hundred and sixty-six and one-half
acres of the north part, his brother Joel taking a deed of ninety-two
acres on the south part, on the west side of Main Street.

Jesse Bumpus took up by article from the company, the land from the
town line of Gaines on the north, to near State Street on the south.
John Holtzbarger, or Holsenburgh, as he was sometimes called, took up

the next land south of Bumpus and Elijah Darrow took the next.

Before the canal was made Mr. William Bradner sold one hundred acres
to the north-west part of his tract to Nehemiah Ingersoll and others.
Mr. Ingersoll employed Orange Risden to lay out his land bordering on
the Oak Orchard Road and canal, into village lots, and to make a plat of
the same. From this Mr. Ingersoll sold lots and opened the streets, he
having bought out his partners.

The Bumpus tract, on the west side of Main Street, at this time was
owned by Mr. Roswell Burrows, the father of Messrs. R. S. & L.
burrows. He did not layout his land into village lots by any general
survey and plan, but laid off lots and opened streets from time to time
as the wants of the public required. The land fronting on Main Street,
through the village, was taken up and mostly occupied by purchasers from
the original proprietors, about the time the canal was made navigable.

The location of the County Seat in Albion, about this time, and the
bustle and business of erecting county buildings, establishing the
courts and public offices and organizing the affairs of a new county,
town and village, brought in an influx of inhabitants at once,
representing the different callings and employments pursued by those who
settled in villages along the canal.

The south side of the canal--the north being the towing path--was
soon occupied by buildings put up for the canal trade, such as
warehouses and grocery stores. The large number of passengers who filled
the canal boats, made the grocery stores, from which they the boatmen
procured their supplies, places of lively trade, by night and day.
Variety stores, each filled with goods of every name, class and
description demanded by the customers, were numerous, though small.

Among the first merchants were Goodrich & Standart, John Tucker,
O. H. Gardner, R. S. & L. Burrows, Alderman Butts, and Freeman
Clarke, of late years a prominent banker in Rochester, N. Y.

When the Commissioners appointed to select the site of the Court
House came onto fix the spot, their choice lay between the largest
village, being on the Ridge road, and being well supplied with mechanics
and merchants, and of having many of the institutions of old and well
organized communities established here. Albion was nearest the
geographical center of the county, and was intersected by the Erie Canal
and Oak Orchard Road. The west branch of Sandy Creek runs through the
east part of the village. Rising in some swamps in the south part of the
town, it afforded sufficient water after the melting of the snow in
spring, and after rains to turn machinery a part of the year, but in
summer was nearly dry. On this stream two saw mills had been built, one
in the village, the other south of it.

The Commissioners came to consider the claims of the rival village
about the middle of the dry season. Mr. Nehemiah Ingersoll, Philetus
Bumpus, Henry Henderson and a few other Albion men, determined to use a
little strategy to help Albion, Knowing when the Commissioners would be
here the creek would be too low to move the sawmills, and foresee the
advantage a good mill stream would give them, they patched the two dams
and flumes and closed the gates to hold all the water some days before
the Commissioners would arrive; sent some teams to haul logs and lumber
about the saw mill and mill yard, in the village to make the ground and
give the appearance of business there.

When the Commissioners came to see Albion, having been generously
dined and wined by its hospitable people, they were taken in a carriage
to see the place, and in the course of the ride driven along the creek
and by the sawmill, then in full operation, with men and teams at work
among the lumber, with a good supply of water from the ponds thus made
for the occasion. The Commissioners were impressed with the importance
of this fine water power and gave the county buildings to Albion before
the ponds ran out.

Mr. Ingersoll donated to the county the grounds now occupied by the
court and jail and public park.

The first court house was built in 1827, of brick, with the County
Clerk's office in the lower story. Gilbert Howell, Calvin smith and
Elihu Mather were building committee.

This Court House was pulled down and a new one erected in its place
in 1857-58, at a cost of $20,000. W. V. N. Barlow was the architect, and
Lyman Bates, Henry A. King and Charles Baker, building committee.

The present jail was built in 1838, and the clerk's office in 1836.

The first hotel was kept on the south-west corner of Main and Canal
streets, by -------Churchill. The next hotel, called Albion Hotel, was
built by Philetus Bumpus about twenty rods south of the canal on the
west side of Main street, and kept several years by Bumpus &
Howland, succeeded by Hiram sickles. Mr. Bumpus then built the Mansion
House, a hotel standing on the north side of the canal, on Main Street,
which he kept several years.

Mr. Philetus Bumpus, and his father, Jesse Bumpus, built the first
framed dwellinghouse in Albion, on the lot on which Mr. L. Burrows now
resides.

The first warehouse was built by Nehemiah Ingersoll, on the canal
about twenty rods east of Main Street. the next by Cary & Tilden, on
the west side of Main street, on the canal.

The first sawmill in the corporation of Albion was built in 1819, by
William Bradner.

Mr. William Bradner built the first grist-mill, the millstones for
which he cut in person from a rock in Palmyra. One of these stones is
now used for a corner guard stone on the corner of State and Clarendon
streets. These mills were cheap structures and were taken away after a
few years.

The stone flouring mill on the canal was built by Ward & Clarke
in 1838.

The first lawyer in Albion was Theophilus Capen. He remained here but
a short time. The next lawyers were William J. Moody, Alexis Ward, Henry
R. Curtis, Gideon Hard, William W. Ruggles, and others came about the
time the county was organized.

Dr. Orson Nichoson was the first physician. He located two miles
south of the village in 1819, and removed to Albion in 1822. Dr. William
White, who had been in practice at Oak Orchards in Ridgeway, came here
about the time the county was organized, and opened a drug store and
went into partnership with Dr. Nichoson in the practice of medicine.

Dr. Stephen M. Potter was one of the early physicians who settled in
Albion. He was born in Westport, Mass., removed to Cazenovia, n. Y., and
from thence to Albion. About the year 1837 he removed to Cazenovia
again. He represented Madison County in the State legislature in 1846.

The first tanyard was located on the south side of the canal on the
lot now occupied by the gas works, by Jacob Ingersoll, about the year
1825. Tanning
was continued here until the gas works were built in 1858.

The first blacksmiths were John Moe, Rodney A. Torrey and Phineas
Phillips.

Albion was at first for some years called Newport, but on account of
trouble with the mails, there being another post office in this state by
the name of Newport, at a meeting of the inhabitants to take measures to
get the village incorporated, on motion of Gideon Hard, the name was
changed to Albion in the first Act of Incorporation passed April 21st,
1828. The first company of firemen was organized in 1831.

John Henderson settled in Albion in Sept. 1825 and established the
first shop for making carriages. He kept the first livery stable in
1834, and started the first horse and cart for public accommodation in
1837. He has been an active man, an ingenious mechanic and has built
tenor twelve dwelling houses and numerous shops, barns and other
buildings here.